unforum

[rose]

[AMarine88]

[thebruce]

or at least, they'll play for whatever prize they can get. yes, there are people who care more about getting stuff (or, getting more stuff than others) than just furthering a good story with a bonus memento... unfortunately.

[Siege88]

I think this also brings up the question of whether this is an ARG with prizes given out, or if it's a contest to give out prizes with some story bits thrown in.

I think you'll have a much easier time convincing people to let others try to unlock the servers if the second round of rewards go out and they turn out to be the same, or very similar to the first ones.

[Oldbo]

[AshofPompei]

[Phyltre]

Disagreements aside, I don't see how anyone logically thinks that previous unlockers standing aside will effectively improve anyone's odds of getting swag. Run the numbers.

At no point (save the first moments of the first server, but everyone had to login/register/fix their age) has the rate of key use dropped below ten per minute. In fact at its height the key use rate was probably 60 a minute--one per second. Now look at how the internet works. This means that there's an eight-minute-or-so window of opportunity to unlock a server; you need to either find the bounce control page on your own through the clues (extremely unlikely to occur in those eight minutes) or you will find a link to it on a forum or IRC channel. Now, if all we had was the unforums, and ABO/other ARG forums, this would be a good line of reasoning; active users on these forums in those eight minutes would have a pretty good chance of unlocking a server.

However, we have to consider that a post is immediately made on bungie.net whenever a Bounce Control page is found. And the activity rates on that forum (especially during periods of ARG activity that surround bounce control pages coming online) are such that many people--many more people than there are keys--see the post and follow the link. If you accept that the key usage rate has reached one per second on the second server/episode (and there's no reason to doubt that number if you watched people post their key numbers in the IRC) then that implies that thousands of people are actively following this ARG, because the number of people who will stumble upon a link will be much lower than the overall number of people who would get word in ten, twenty, or thirty minutes. Thousands. At most two hundred people have unlocked servers. You do the math on how much that's going to help you get swag.

The previous unlockers are just a drop in the bucket--a bucket that is growing as word of the ARG spreads to more and more casual fans or people who have been on summer vacations, are gearing up as we close in on the Halo 3 release, etc. It sounds well and good to ask them to stand down but in the end it's not going to make a difference either way.

Either you see the bounce control page link in that eight-minute window, or you don't.

[thebruce]

however, if you consider that the first places to actually find the servers are the core puzzle-solving communities - ABO, here, CI, IRC - then if one from within the community who's already got one steps back, that keeps the door open for another from the community to have a chance, before the hordes of fanboys link their way in; otoh, if all the puzzle-solvers all jump straight in to grab the swag, then that leaves little room for others who are also solving the puzzles, not just linking (though this is to be expected by the nature of the game).

And really, there's no hard numbers to prove 'per-minute' rates or anything. We know when the servers are unlocked, not when they're made available, let alone that the key use rate is even close to one per second, rather than a quickly growing curve until 100.

Anyhow, the point remains - there's no rule saying anyone has to ONLY unlock one, but there are loads of people who would like a chance to; and chances are, the first people to unlock servers are generally paying close attention already, and stand a good chance of unlocking another. The hordes get in only once the word gets out; before then, the puzzle-solvers have their best chance - however short that period of time may be.

So ultimately, to each his own... that's really all there is to it.

[Phyltre]